Edouard Jean Baptiste Milhaud

Edouard Jean Baptiste Milhaud (10 July 1766-10 December 1833) was a French politician, General de Division, and a Count of the First French Empire. He was considered to be one of the best cavalry generals of Napoleon's army during the Napoleonic Wars.

Biography
Edouard Jean Baptiste Milhaud was born in Arpajon-sur-Cere, France on 10 July 1766, and he was commissioned into the French Royal Army as an officer in 1789. During the French Revolution, he was elected to the National Convention, and he defended Jean-Paul Marat against the attacks of the Girondins. In 1793, he was sent as a commissar to the French armies in the Rhineland and Ardennes, and he later served in the Pyrenees and became a member of a military committee.

Cavalry general
After the Thermidorian Reaction, Milhaud was saved from execution by fellow committee members, and he left politics to become a dragoon commander in the Armee d'Italie under Napoleon Bonaparte. In January 1800, he became a General de Brigade, and he served under Joachim Murat in the campaign leading up to the Battle of Austerlitz; he also fought at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, earning him a promotion to General de Division. In 1807, he distinguished himself at the Battle of Eylau against the Russians, and his valor led to Napoleon appointing him as a Count of the Empire. From 1808 to 1811, he fought in the Peninsular War, and he was briefly the military commandant of Moscow during Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia. In 1813, he commanded a cavalry corps at the Battle of Leipzig, and he was made General of the Cavalry in 1814. During Napoleon's Hundred Days, he immediately supported Napoleon, commanding the IV Cavalry Corps at the Battle of Waterloo. His attacks proved a failure, and, after the Bourbon Restoration, King Louis XVIII of France exiled Milhaud for having voted for the execution of King Louis XVI of France in 1793. After the July Revolution in 1830, he was called back to France, but he died in Aurillac in 1833.